Two Steps
by And So It Ends
Summary: Artemis grew up on her instincts, whatever they may be, and she liked it that way. Never did she imagine she might become part of a team that could make her want to change them.


**Hey there. This story is based off of a (I guess 'prompt' would be the best word to go here) coming from a story called "Unite" by Phangirling. I suggest reading the story, it very much deserves the attention. Anyway, this stems from Chapter 5, "Habit".**

**Habit - ****Kaldur's not sure if it's a good thing or not that Artemis automatically takes two steps away from someone if they take two steps towards her. He supposes the deciding factor would be what, or rather who made her that way.**

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When Artemis was a little girl, one of the first lessons she learned, growing up the way she did, was to take two steps back whenever she was met with a problem, to distance herself. Because two steps back was always _just_ enough distance to put her out of arm's reach and, more importantly, enough distance to put her mind out of reach. In her head, those two small steps away expanded into a comfortable two-mile stretch. And from two miles away, almost anything and everything eventually shrank to a dot on the horizon. Artemis learned from experience that it was much easier coming back to her problems, thinking about them, analyzing them - walking those two miles up to whatever looming shadow she had to face next, watching it grow steadily bigger, rather than sitting in shock, having to tip her head back and look apprehensively up at its sudden existence.

Over the years, it became an instinct to her, a defense mechanism. It made sense to her, since _safe_ was never an option for Artemis; she would take whatever degree of_ secure_ she could get, any kind of protection those two steps would possibly grant her.

Two steps back.

It was the first thing she did when she finally unfroze that one night, the night Jade left. Long after Jade had disappeared, after the Cheshire cat and its grin had both dissolved, Artemis tried to go after after her. Shakily forcing herself to her feet, she stood, frozen, one foot in front of the other, mid-stride. Her storming eyes, brewing with clouds of confusion, bored into the windowsill, the one that was scuffed and scarred from openings and closings late at night, where Jade would sneak out of when she thought Artemis was asleep, and the passageway she would stumble back through come morning, close with a heavy sigh, and breathe, exhausted, clenching the windowsill like she couldn't physically let go while simultaneously clutching it with sharp claws of hands, like it burned to touch. It was the windowsill that her White Rabbit had always disappeared down – the Rabbit Hole, where, that night, Jade had entered Wonderland for the last time, never to return. Alice should go through the Rabbit Hole, right? It's only natural, for Alice to seek Wonderland, and the White Rabbit. Alice's Wonderland, Artemis's Wonderland, _any_ Wonderland was what Artemis needed at that moment, and it was right there, beyond the Rabbit Hole that was blowing chilly, smoggy Gotham air into the room, two steps away from her.

Two steps forward. She could do two steps forward. Her body had already overtaken her mind, after all. Inside, she was two miles away, numb and empty, still sitting on her bed, cuddling her bear to her chest, watching the window-shaped dot on the horizon. Outside, her bones ached from _not_ moving, magnetized to the window as Alice was to Wonderland.

But two miles away, in some small part of her mind where Artemis, not Alice, was awake, Artemis could see a problem with this Wonderland. That was no flash of white fur past the curtains, no, not long, furry, ears, but rather, only the chilling gleam of a sparkling grin with no face, floating back to whence it came.

Artemis took two steps.

Back.

Artemis could only remember one time when two steps weren't enough. It was when her father came home one night, _just_ her father. He stood in front of her, the only dark and looming shadow she couldn't tuck herself two miles away from, no matter how many steps she took, because his shadow stole the sky and ate the sun and each time it did, she moved two miles in a new direction, and still ended up under that pitch-black sky. But two steps was still an instinct, and Artemis always followed her instincts.

"Your mother's not coming back, little girl." Two steps back.

"I'm going to train you from now on." Two more.

"You're going into the family business, Artemis. You've got to be strong; you can't run away like your sister." Left foot first, then the right one, her heels scraping the worn-down floorboards as she took her familiar two - step shuffle backwards.

She's looking up at that blackened sky with hopeless eyes, trying to find somewhere to be numb, for it to stop, please, _please_ let it stop, but the shadow is there, it's always there, and then it's right in front of her. Her father bridges the steps with two large strides. He takes her by the shoulders (she can't move back, his grip is too strong, so she flinches instead) and tells her she can't be afraid anymore. She can't take two steps back. That's weakness. That's fear.

Eventually, Artemis learns to disguise the steps: shifting back to drop into a defensive stance, moving back to allow space for a wide roundhouse kick, bending her knees and tilting backwards so it appears she is gaining momentum to jump into a back handspring. They are not two steps back anymore, but they are still there, the two miles that she could find solace in.

So now, after a particularly dangerous mission, when the lives of the team were barely saved by a specific little bird, the team is beamed in via zeta, sweaty, exhausted, and shell-shocked from their near non-escape, and no one exerts effort in acting surprised when a teary-eyed Martian girl suddenly flies to their youngest member and grips him around the neck, sobbing quietly. Wally, for once, doesn't speak, but hugs Robin's other side and lets his head fall against his friend's. Gazing at his teammates, Kaldur watches as Connor attempts to console his girlfriend and instead gets pulled into the hug; the Atlantean allows himself to smile a little as he himself pulls his arms up to lay on the shoulders of the others in the huddle. Suddenly, all eyes, some tearing up, some clear as day, all expectant, are on Artemis.

_Touching_, she's never been good at; _hugging_, even worse. _Things people expect out of her_, have never ended well. _Trust_, that, _that's_ the worst of it. But they're her friends, her family, and her team. She doesn't understand this choice (she's never really _had_ choices before) and, as hard as she tries to stop it, she can feel herself falling, dropping into the numbness. They're going to shrink away, smaller and smaller into the horizon, as two miles away tend to make things appear. Her feet ache to _move already_, her mind begs to stop having to face this. This is the moment for two steps back, two steps back, twostepsback twostepsback twostepsback.

She takes two steps.

Forward.

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I would love it if you reviewed, whether you loved or hated it.

_~And So It Ends_


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